Two Concepts of Freedom   It is hard not to feel the pull of both of the standard positions on free will. On the one hand, it seems right to say that a free action is one that is in accordance with the agent’s desires, as opposed to one that is forced on […]

    Desire and Understanding   In the course of a perceptive description of a cat James Joyce writes: “She understands all she wants to” (Ulysses, p.48). The cat doesn’t try to understand what she has no wish to understand, let alone what she cannot understand; she doesn’t try to acquire knowledge that doesn’t interest […]

  Meaning, Use, and Time     I propose to do a Kripke: I will describe an argument that was prompted by reading Wittgenstein—which I neither attribute to Wittgenstein nor endorse myself.  [1] I think it fits many of the things he says, and I also think it is interesting and compelling; but I don’t want […]

    Personality Theory   Personal identity has an established place in the philosophical universe but personality is not so sedulously studied. People have personalities (some animals too) but not much is said about them by philosophers (by psychologists, yes, where personality theory is part of the curriculum). Why not? There are some good philosophical […]